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What Is Gatsby's Way Of Achieving The American Dream

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The American Dream has been an ideal sought by millions of immigrants and refugees for over 200 years. While many of these immigrants will fall into the bowels of American society; a lucky few will rise to the top and create a life for themselves that their parents could never have achieved. That is the beauty and horror of the American Dream. It is a spring of wealth with unlimited potential, but with unlimited potential comes unlimiteddwsire for more. The poster boy for this story is strangely not an immigrant, but rather a young farm boy who wanted to chase his personal American Dream.
Daisy. Daisy was Gatsby’s American dream. So badly does he want to go back to the days of kissing in her car that he defiantly proclaims that he can and will relive the past (Fitzgerald 110). “His life had been confused and disordered since then” (110) and he was ready to do anything in order to get his Daisy back. This drive leads Gatsby to engage in shady business practices working with “the man who fixed the World Series back in 1919” (73) and selling alcohol in his drug stores(90). This was Gatsby’s way of achieving his American Dream and he chose to break the law because it was his boom or bust way to get back Daisy. So it seems that the American Dream is something that you will do anything to achieve. …show more content…

Despite finally having Daisy back she “tumbled short of his dreams […] because of the colossal; vitality of his illusion” (95). Even after it appears he completed his dream and has everything he ever wanted, Gatsby still wanted more hoping Daisy would announce to Tom “I never loved you” (109). The drive for his dream drained him and he learned “no amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (96). The second part of the American dream is that it is unobtainable and is not meant to be

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